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From Florella Brown Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair and Emma Adair
[page 1]
Hudson
Nov[.] 21, 1860
My Dear Dear Husband & Daughter
Charles has just received a letter from home dated Nov. 12[,] in which you say you have not received mine & seem to complain a great deal of Mother for not writing more & differently from what I have. first you complain that no one seems to think any thing of you & when I wrote that your friends did think of you & expressed their sympathy & good will for you that was heartless & not to be believed[,] you said you had seen to much of such talk to think people were sincere or ment much by it, & again if people wanted to see us, let them show it by going to Kansas to see us. but more than all[,] mother seems to be the great trouble[.]
You seem to express yourself as very much tried by my course & you dont know what to say about "me or you will not say what you think or what you were going to say" but you carry the idea that you feel hard that I do not go home & think I ought to be "tired of visiting long ago" & Mother seems to enjoy visiting so well, "a [vaciling?] uncertain way of doing things[,] which keeps you in suspense[,] is very unpleasant.
Now you my [may] think that it is very pleasant for us to hear all this, but Charles[,] I know[,] is made discontented by it. he said right off after reading the last letter he should not stay more than this quarter & then would go home. I have tried to do as near right about the matter as I could & have done what[,] on the whole[,] seemed to be best for all. Your letters of late are so complaining & discourageing that

This letter, dated November 21, 1860, was written by Florella Brown Adair in Hudson, Ohio to her husband Samuel Lyle Adair and daughter Emma in Osawatomie, Kansas. Florella responds to their recent letters, which were “so complaining and discouraging, that I feel more like staying away, than hurrying home…it seems to me that the Territory is cursed of the Lord and that it is fighting against him to try to live there and do anything but barely to exist…I cannot help feeling a perfect disgust for Kansas life, and most of Kansas people.” Florella adds that she read about the “Montgomery and Fort Scott troubles” in the newspapers.

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From Florella Brown Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair and Emma Adair
[page 1]
Hudson
Nov[.] 21, 1860
My Dear Dear Husband & Daughter
Charles has just received a letter from home dated Nov. 12[,] in which you say you have not received mine & seem to complain a great deal of Mother for not writing more & differently from what I have. first you complain that no one seems to think any thing of you & when I wrote that your friends did think of you & expressed their sympathy & good will for you that was heartless & not to be believed[,] you said you had seen to much of such talk to think people were sincere or ment much by it, & again if people wanted to see us, let them show it by going to Kansas to see us. but more than all[,] mother seems to be the great trouble[.]
You seem to express yourself as very much tried by my course & you dont know what to say about "me or you will not say what you think or what you were going to say" but you carry the idea that you feel hard that I do not go home & think I ought to be "tired of visiting long ago" & Mother seems to enjoy visiting so well, "a [vaciling?] uncertain way of doing things[,] which keeps you in suspense[,] is very unpleasant.
Now you my [may] think that it is very pleasant for us to hear all this, but Charles[,] I know[,] is made discontented by it. he said right off after reading the last letter he should not stay more than this quarter & then would go home. I have tried to do as near right about the matter as I could & have done what[,] on the whole[,] seemed to be best for all. Your letters of late are so complaining & discourageing that